


Everyone Fails At Who Their Supposed To Be

by Dragongoddess13



Series: Everyone Fails At Who They're Supposed To Be [3]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Dark Past, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family Drama, Family Feels, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 03:57:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21191180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragongoddess13/pseuds/Dragongoddess13
Summary: Sequel To Home Is Where My Heart IsArya's family just wants to know what happened in the ten years she was missing, and Arya finally ready to tell them.





	Everyone Fails At Who Their Supposed To Be

Everyone Fails At Who Their Supposed To Be

xXx

Arya takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. He can feel the movement as she leans against him, but he doesn’t say anything. He knows she’ll speak when she’s ready, so he keeps his eyes focused on the movie. 

“I’ll tell them.” she finally speaks. “I’ll tell them about all the alcohol and the drugs and AA, but… I don’t want them to know about the Waif.” 

“The Waif?” he questions. 

“The woman who stabbed me.” she tells him, craning her neck back to look at him. He looks back in disbelief. 

“Her name is  _ The Waif?” _

She shrugs. “I don’t know what her real name is. As far as I know, no one does.” 

“Even the police?” She simply nods. “Well I don’t like that one bit. You definitely can’t tell them about her. Who knows what your father will do.” 

“My thoughts exactly, so we’ll just keep that part to ourselves and I’ll tell them about everything else. They deserve to know the truth.”

“Hey,” he jostled her a bit with the arm around her rib cage. “No one is entitled to your story. Not even them. But, if you feel like you need to tell them, I’ll be there.” 

“What else is new?” she smiles up at him. Gendry chuckles, leaning over and laying a kiss on her forehead. 

“Why don’t you call your family, invite them over for dinner. I only have one appointment tomorrow. I’ll open up the shop for them and then I’ll come home and help you get ready. Then you can tell them all after dinner.” 

“It’s going to be nice tomorrow, how about we barbecue?” she replies simply, ignoring the fact that he referred to this as home. 

“As a stereotypical male, I find that very appealing.” 

Arya laughs, waking the dogs at the end of the sofa. “There’s nothing stereotypical about you. Nothing.” 

He grins. “Oh yeah, spread that around, huh.” She laughs as he leans in, closing the distance between them. The kiss is awkward at the angle their sitting and they laugh as their noses bump. They share a few sweet kisses until Arya pulls away, yawning. “Bed?” he asks, yawning himself. She hums and nods and leads him off upstairs. 

xXx

“What if she’s not going to tell us tonight?” Rickon asks. Bran is in the back seat beside him, his mother in the passenger seat and Ned in the driver’s seat. 

“I doubt she would invite us all over for dinner just to pretend the other night didn’t happen.” Bran replies. Ever the voice of reason, he was the only one other than their father who didn’t unload on Arya the night before yesterday. Truth be told it doesn’t matter to him why she left, where she went or what she did. Only that she’s home now. He remembers what things were like for her before she ran away and he can’t blame her for wanting some distance. And of course, his sister is human, and like all humans she’s not infallible. Any number of things could have happened to keep her from coming home.

“If she was going to keep from saying anything, she would avoid us, Rick, not inviting us over.” Ned replies. Like Bran, he’s not concerned with what happened after she left. She was eighteen at the time and while he would like to know what happened in general, she was an adult, and he knows logically she has no obligation to explain herself. 

Ned remembers that time more clearly than anyone. There were days he wanted to drive across town and put an end to Elmar Frey once and for all. He had never liked Elmar’s father, and hadn’t been thrilled with the idea of Arya dating his youngest son, but she seemed happy and that was all that mattered. Truth be told he had felt bad for Gendry. It was obvious the boy had had feelings for his best friend for quite some time, but for whatever reason he had failed to admit to any of it. He couldn’t imagine what it was like for him to see her with someone he clearly didn’t trust. 

When the story broke on the front page, Catelyn had to physically restrain him from going after Elmar. While she had still been under the impression that it was a coincidence, instinct told him otherwise. Hearing the conformation from Sansa only made things worse. Walder Frey had been a parasite for as long as Ned had known him, and it would seem his youngest son had learned to be one too. While he couldn’t react physically as he wanted to, Ned took to heart that he could do other things to ruin the young man. Within a month after Arya’s disappearance, the university Elmar had been attending had expelled him for his behavior. He was black listed from all other Universities in the North as well, forcing him to find education elsewhere. In King’s Landing, most people didn’t know who he was or what he had done and Ned made sure it wasn’t long before he found out. All of his contacts within the influential families in the south were made aware of his past transgressions toward his family. They shunned him, keeping their children from interacting with him and cutting him off from the recognition in the upper class society he craved. 

Once he had graduated the only work that waited for him was a rag magazine in the North. Ned left him alone after that, checking in every so often to make sure he wasn’t finding any form of the success he craved. He relished in the frustration Elmar must have been feeling, knowing he had miscalculated and would spend the rest of his life, if Ned had any say in it, paying for it. 

Ned pulls into the gravel driveway of Arya’s country cottage, Sansa and Jon pulling in behind them followed by Robb. Talisa and Ygritte had chosen to stay home with the children, giving the Stark’s the privacy they needed to finally put the past behind them. 

“Looks like Gendry’s here.” Sansa says as she approaches her parents. 

“Are you really surprised?” Robb jokes. Sansa laughs. 

“No, I guess not.” she replies. “Arya said to go in through the back gate.” she points off at the wood and iron gate door to the far side of the cottage and together they make their way over. As they approach they can hear voices in the backyard. 

“Would you behave yourself?” Arya scolds, though she sounds like she’s trying not to laugh. No one thinks much of it, so they continue forward as Gendry replies;

“No, I don’t want to.” 

The family pushes through the gate and follow the path along the side of the house. It’s not long before they catch sight of Arya and Gendry near the grill, though their all surprised by what they see. Arya is stretched up on her toes, sharing a kiss with Gendry whose bent over to reach her. 

Ned feels Catelyn bristle beside him and tries not to laugh. It’s not exactly what any of them expected to find, but for any of them to be surprised is a bit ludicrous. 

Ned steps forward and clears his throat, startling the pair apart. Their faces are red as they realize where the sound has come from and Gendry looks anywhere but at him. 

“We’re not too early are we?” Ned asks amused. 

“Actually dad, we’re right on time.” Bran replies, peaking around him to show him the clock on his phone. 

“So we are.” he turns to find Catelyn looking at him with an air of amusement, shaking her head. 

xXx

“That was delicious Gendry.” Catelyn tells him as they finish up their meal. 

“Thank you.” he replies. “It was a team effort.” he tells her, looking to Arya who smiles shyly. 

“Not surprising. You’ve always liked to cook. I’m honestly surprised you didn’t go into the culinary arts.” Catelyn adds. 

“Actually, I did work with Hot Pie in Braavos for about a year before I started up the nursery.” she explains. “It was fun, but I realized I rather liked cooking for fun, not work.” 

“So you had a job while down there?” Bran asks. 

“A few actually. I didn’t want to live on my trust fund.” she tells them. “I worked at a florist for about a year and a half, then sometime later, Hot Pie took me on in his bakery.” 

“Sometime later?” Robb asks. “Was there a period of unemployment in there?” 

Arya looks away, sharing a look with Gendry who gives her a comforting nudge. “I uh, I only intended to be gone for a year. You know, a year off before school kind of thing. But some things happened, and I got caught up.” 

“What kind of things?” Sansa asks softly. 

Arya begins picking at her nails nervously. “It started with drinking. I spent almost every night in a club, just trying to blow off steam. I managed to keep things relatively controlled for about a year, but I wasn’t feeling any better, nothing could make it all go away.” she explains. Everyone refrains from speaking, letting her take her time to find her words. “I met some people, who listened and told me they could help and I was desperate enough to take them up on their offer. I started using drugs, pills, and about six months later I just stopped showing up for work.” 

“But your clean now?” Rickon, surprisingly is the first to speak. She nods. 

“Got my seven year chip not long after coming back to the North.” 

“That’s why you didn’t come home?” Catelyn questions. Arya looks to her, startled by the tears in her eyes. 

“I was afraid that everything would come back if I came home. That I would backslide. It certainly didn’t help that I was afraid of what all of you would think.” she continues. “But I’m better now. I’m sober, I’ve talked to a professional about everything and I see a doctor regularly to make sure no unexpected consequences appear.” she takes a deep breath and shrugs, cutting herself off when she realizes she’s slowly starting to ramble. 

“But that’s it? That’s why you were gone so long?” Rickon asks. She nods. “That’s stupid.” he snaps, surprising everyone. 

“Rickon.” Catelyn chastises, but he brushes it off. 

“No, it is!” he exclaims, turning from Arya to his mother and back again. “We’re family. We’re supposed to be here for each other. I mean even when you were gone we were fighting for you.” he tells her, and she’s taken aback by the tears in his eyes. “Gendry got arrested!” 

“What?!” Arya exclaimed, turning to look at a rueful Gendry. “For what?” 

Gendry sighs, looking at Rickon. “I hadn’t actually gotten the chance to tell her about that yet.” for his part, Rickon looked apologetic. “I may have beat the shit out of Elmar in a pub fight a few years ago.” 

“Why?” she asks. 

“He, uh, he was trying to make himself seem all big and bad to his mates, bragging about what happened. I snapped.” he explains. “Lommy and Podrick tried to keep me away from him, but I’d had a few drinks and… well… you know.” 

“I don’t understand. How have I never heard this before?” 

“I pulled a few strings to make it go away.” Ned chimes in, drawing her attention. “I wasn’t about to let his reputation be ruined over something like that.” 

Arya smiles softly at her father and a silence falls over them. 

“So, uh, are we finished talking about this?” Bran finally speaks up. “Is this all done, in the past, we can move on?” 

“I think that would be a good idea.” Catelyn replies. 

“Good, now we can focus on giving Arya and Gendry a hard time.” he smirks. 

“For what?” Arya asks outraged. 

“Are kidding?” Sansa pipes up. “We walked in here and caught you snogging.”

Gendry’s face turns beat red and he tries to hide his embarrassment by taking a long drink. 

“We were not snogging.” Arya defends vehemently. “It was just a kiss.” 

“You were definitely snogging.” Robb cut in. 

“No, we weren’t.” 

“Looked like snogging from where I was standing.” Jon adds. 

“Oh what would you know?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Ygritte told me all sorts of stories about you when you started dating.” 

Jon looks outraged. “Excuse you, we’re married now. We have a daughter I’d say I’ve proven myself quite well.”

“Alright!” Catelyn speaks up, cutting off Arya’s reply. “I think it’s time to end this conversation before we start saying things you don’t want your parents to hear.” 

xXx

“It really was a delicious meal, darling.” Catelyn says as Arya enters the kitchen, carrying a handful of dirty dishes. She sets them in the sink where her mother looks to be getting to start cleaning them. 

“Thank you, mum.” Arya replies. “Don’t worry about those, mum, I’ll take care of them later.” she insists. 

Catelyn doesn’t say anything about it, but she seems to listen as she turns away from the sink to look at her youngest daughter. “I need you to know something.” she tells her, suddenly serious. 

“What’s that?” 

“I’m proud of you.” she says. “I know I didn’t say that enough, or at all really, when you were younger, but I am. I am very proud of you.” Arya swallows, forcing back tears. “You’ve been through so much. You faced your demons, you pulled yourself out of a hole and you started your own business, on your own merit, and I am so  _ very  _ proud of you for all of it. You’ve always been so strong, I think I forgot that you were still just a little girl. That you could be hurt just as easily as anyone else.” she continues. “I look at you and I see your father and I think nothing can hurt you.” Catelyn steps closer pulling Arya into her arms. “I’m sorry I was so hard on you. You were just trying to be yourself and there was nothing wrong with that.” 

“Thank you mummy.” Arya whispers into her shoulder. Catelyn held her tighter. 


End file.
